The average UK worker now carries out approximately 22 days' price of overtime a year. Meanwhile, inflation reaches a 40-year a lot of 10.1%, and real pay is dropping 2.8% – the quickest decline since records began in 2001.
In response, the popularity of “quiet quitting” is emerging. This attitude encourages employees to fulfil their job duties without subscribing to “work is life” culture to guide their career and stand out to their managers.
The concept of putting in just enough effort not receiving fired, but without going above and beyond, has a long history in the labour movement. An idea called “work to rule” has been utilized by workers around the world for hundreds of years, and is a popular method of industrial action in the UK.
Historically, trying to rule continues to be an effective – and legal – tool for unions to disrupt the operations of a company during trade disputes by slowing down operations. When the French railways were nationalised in 1938, strikes were forbidden. However, railway workers were aware that French law required engineers to make sure the security associated with a bridge over which the train passes.
If question remained following a personal examination, the engineer had to consult other members of the train crew. Trying to rule isn't just about minimising workload, you can use it to frustrate the operations too – in this case, workers called for every bridge to become inspected, consulting every crew, leading to none of the trains running on time.
In 1968, a lot more than 2,000 Air Canada passenger agents and communications personnel implemented work to rule over a labour dispute. Representatives at that time stated their members would usually take whatever “shortcuts” they might to keep passengers moving at maximum speed. However, they abandoned these shortcuts, working strictly towards the airline's rules and regulations, until a settlement was reached.
In May 2023, the UK university college union took “action short of a strike”, which often describes a piece to rule approach. Staff still completed their jobs, but interrupted the standard operations of work through eight types of action:
- boycott of marking and assessing
- not covering for absent or unavailable colleagues
- not while using university's online systems on the Friday
- not rescheduling lectures, classes, appointments, meetings or any other tasks cancelled due to industrial action
- not engaging in meetings longer than 50 minutes
- not sending emails before 9:00 am after 5:00 pm
- not volunteering ideas or for additional tasks
- not undertaking work beyond that contracted.
This demonstrated to the employer that the university could not function without staff routinely exceeding beyond and beyond what their jobs actually require.
In August 2023, people in the nation's Union of Journalists, include those in the Daily Mirror, Daily Express and Manchester Evening News voted 88% towards action lacking a strike. Amid ongoing, all-out strikes in a number of industries, there's clearly still an appetite for disruption in the workplace.
Is quiet quitting a form of industrial action?
Industrial action in the UK is evolving. A younger and more diverse labour market wants change in work over inequality and pay gaps, however their approach is less about working class solidarity compared to previous generations.
This can be seen within the decline in trade union membership, especially among younger people. For workers aged 20 -29, trade union membership is at 14.1%. This falls by almost half to 7.5% within the private sector, where most young adults work.
Many states (in particular EU members or countries trading using the EU) have restricted the liberty of employers and workers to form contractual arrangements, and to change them as economic circumstances alter. Before state intervention, industrial relations were mostly voluntary arrangements between employers, employees and trade unions. Using the decline in trade union membership and fewer opportunities for industrial action, “quiet quitting” and dealing to rule is becoming more common.
The methods of elimination of labour might be similar, but the overarching premise behind them has changed. Trying to rule has historically been a kind of collective action over a dispute, usually involving pay and conditions.
The quiet quitting approach includes a far more personal and psychological attitude, tied to workers' individual desire for good mental health. Psychologists reason that this approach to work can salve burnout, set healthy boundaries, build a sense of control and help people prioritise what really matters.
Employers will need to address this problem to make sure productivity isn't affected within the short or long term – but it will be hard to tackle. Try to rule (along with other industrial action) is a known quantity for employers. Personnel are clear concerning the terms of the dispute, exactly what the collective action is and just how long it will last.
On another hand, as its name suggests, quiet quitting is really a silent protest that employers will have to solve by meeting the requirements of each employee, or by reengaging with trade unions to create workplaces that people want to build relationships.
This article is republished from The Conversation. Read the original article.
